A passive aggressive national ethos

The other day I commented on a story from the Washington Post that Arab states were failing to fulfill their commitments to fund the Palestinian Authority.

Since then a few other bloggers have written about the story as well as a related story in the Jerusalem Post.

Boker Tov Boulder points out that by focusing on what wasn’t paid to the PA, the story misses the bigger picture: what’s been paid to the PA and gone for naught. In fact 3 weeks ago, we learned that $1 billion in international aid had been disbursed to the PA in 6 months. (This is something that Boker Tov Boulder followed up on.)

The international community has paid out nearly a billion dollars in direct aid to the Palestinians in six months, officials of the International Donors’ Conference for the Palestinian State said here late Monday, while hitting out at Israeli restrictions on movement by Palestinians.

Commenting on the Jerusalem Post story Israel Matzav offers some advice to the PA:

I know one place they could cut back – they could stop paying ‘salaries’ for all their ’employees’ in Gaza who haven’t come to work in over a year. At least 40% of the ‘Palestinian Authority’s ‘budget’ is spent in Gaza, which they do not even control.

That’s right, a significant amount of foreign aid sent to bolster the “moderate” Fatah government gets funneled to the “militant” Hamas government. The claims that we must fund the PA in order to bolster the moderates is undermined by the very moderates we’re supposedly helping.

Elder of Ziyon boils it down to:

The rich Arab oil barons do not consider the PA to be a good investment.

(There’s a lot more to his argument, but that’s the bottom line. So read the whole thing.)

If there was a Zionist ethos, it could be summed up as “making the desert bloom.” While the reality was not necessarily so romantic, it underscores a devotion to being independent. Palestinian nationalism, if it has an ethos it’s “let’s be wards of the international community.” Palestinian statehood has become everyone’s responsibility but the Palestinians.

The nations of the world must give them money. Israel must give them land and free terrorists.

Palestinians nationalism could be described as a passive-aggressive national movement. Why is there an International Donor’s conference to mark the progress towards creating a Palestinian state? Why isn’t Abbas or Fayyad presenting a state of the state message to their many donors explaining how they’ve promoted an industrial infrastructure, instituted government accountability, implemented a legal system that observes high standards of human rights or an educational system that promotes liberal thought? The Palestinians have no responsibilities and nothing is demanded of them.

Everyone everywhere (including numerous Israeli politicians) claim that Israel’s very legitimacy rests on the creation of a Palestinian state. But how can that be when the Palestinians don’t take the necessary steps to create such a state? Why should Israel’s legitimacy be dependent on the behavior of the Palestinians?

And when President Bush says that a stable Middle East depends on having a Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace, why does it matter more to him than to the Arab states who won’t put their money where their mouth is? (Remember that one of the complaints that the Arab world has against the United States – repeated ad nauseum – is that it doesn’t do enough for the Palestinians. But how can the United States do enough, if the Palestinians don’t take the basic steps to create a state themselves? And why doesn’t the United States turn to the Arabs and say, why should we support Palestinians nationalism if you won’t?)

The current trends in diplomacy only encourage Palestinian dependency. At what point will this be recognized and the onus of independence be placed on the ones who claim they want it?

UPDATE: Writing about a trend of Arab countries to invest directly in the Palestinian people and not the government, Daled Amos observed (similar to Elder of Ziyon):

I blogged earlier this week about how contrary to the West that insisted on pouring more millions into the Palestinian Authority to no effect, the Arab countries knew better and have resisted giving money to the PA that they have previously promised. Now it seems that the Arab countries are even smarter than that–they have approached the situation as capitalists, investing in the people instead of squandering it on the leaders.

And from the Arab side of things, Zohir Andreus writes in Killing the Dream:

It is difficult for me to be a Palestinian-Arab these days, because I’m simply ashamed. The conduct of my people in the “liberated” Gaza Strip and in the occupied West Bank does not leave room for any doubt: The dream of establishing a democratic and secular Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel is dissipating. My people is the only one in the world that has no state and, thank God, two governments.

So perhaps it is the governments of the Palestinians who are passive aggressive in seeking nationhood.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.